


no one ever said beauty was painless

by tastybaby



Category: Free!
Genre: Ballet AU, Free! Kink Meme, M/M, Teaching, awkward misplaced ballet terms, little drabble, rinrei though !!, sadsuke, sousuke angst maybe a lil ):
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-11
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2018-02-16 23:29:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2288585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastybaby/pseuds/tastybaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...and he had the (bruised) thighs and knees to show it.</p>
<p>ballet spoke to rei in ways that any other art could never hope to; but the french words jumbled around in his mouth and he just couldn't quite get the hang of that whole staying up on your toes thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	no one ever said beauty was painless

**Author's Note:**

> (short drabble written to inspire someone else to write [this prompt](http://iwatobiswimclub.dreamwidth.org/2701.html?thread=3434637#cmt3434637) because i don't have time to)
> 
> listing this as rinrei because that's where the focus is and i, like many rinrei fans, am absolutely thirsty for new fic. enjoy!

"Rei, it's balancé, balancé, balancé, piqué  _then_ plié," Rin walked fluidly across the empty room from where he'd been watching. Rei watched in the mirror while his sort of impromptu tutor showed him the correct composition. "You can't really drop into a plié from here," he informed, demonstrating the inaccurate bend between the second fondu and relevé. Rei agreed silently that it was far from beautiful. 

"Ah--I suppose you're right. Wait, not--not suppose. I agree with you whole-heartedly, I, uh," Rei averted his eyes, looked every bit as ashamed as he had when they'd started this arrangement. "I have trouble trusting myself to transition fluidly into the piqué. I feel like I'm going to fall again," he confessed. The bruises on his thighs were lessening now that Rin had taught him how to fall gracefully to avoid injury, but he still fell frequently enough to dim his confidence. 

Rin strode behind him and lifted a hand to brush over his left shoulder.

"Arms up. Show me the tightest fifth you've got." Rei complied, but stuttered when Rin's arms snaked around him to tap lightly at his abdomen. "Hey, hey, keep the tension out of your fingers. They still need to look pretty," he laughed in a bemused whisper. 

"This is what will keep you from falling," Rin continued, slender fingers ghosting over the other's stomach. "Keep this tight. Keep your spine as straight as you can, like there's a string attached to the top of it that comes out through the crown of your head," one hand ruffled Rei's choppy, layered hair "and someone just pulled it taut. It'll anchor you, and as long as you're focusing on that, you'll be able to hold even your big, six foot frame on the ball of one foot." He was being generous. Rei was just short of five and eleven inches. 

He gave it a try, anyway, Rin standing by after sensing Rei's fear of another catastrophic fall. Rei peeled his left leg off the floor-pointed with all the strength he could appropriate for it and turned out to create the "4" shape he'd been striving for--and settled his toes into the side of his knee. He wavered a bit, non-working leg unused to carrying everything without his heel touching the ground, but he managed to secure himself for a decent amount of time. He came down gracefully and beamed at Rin, who clapped him on the back and smiled.

"Hey, you're getting it. Let's take a quick break. I've decided to take you up on that coffee you offered to buy me," he grinned, running his fingers through his wine-red hair. Rei straightened and looked at him with shining, admiring eyes. 

"Of, of course!"

* * *

 

Sousuke sat on a bench outside the clinic, thumbing the scrap of paper he'd had in his hand for the last fifteen minutes. It was practically moist with sweat from turning it over in his shaking hands, as if after one more revolution, the words on it would disappear.

_Bursitis hip._

As notorious as doctors were for writing ineligibly, these two words seemed to jump off the page with their biting, crushing clarity that made Sousuke wish he'd never bothered pursuing the cause of the strange popping noises in his hip.

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY I DANCED FOR LIKE 2 YEARS and taught for one. I.. I am not fit to write a good ballet AU, but I was taken by the request and I hadn't written in a while anyway... 
> 
> I like to think that Rei was an above-average tap and swing dancer who was taken by the ballet performance he got dragged to see (by Nagisa, who was trying to convert him all along). For some reason, he's fully capable of turns and leaps, but any actual footwork is beyond him. 
> 
> Here are some links to help you understand [bursitis](http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/bursitis/basics/definition/con-20015102) and [snapping hip syndrome](http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=A00363). Sousuke... )":


End file.
